there is only one person in fiction that I can think of that would fit the Grey Lantern form and could still do stuffShikamaru Nara OF THE ELEMENTAL COUNTRIES YOU SHOW GREAT LAZINESS or stuff so you get a ring.

there is only one person in fiction that I can think of that would fit the Grey Lantern form and could still do stuffShikamaru Nara OF THE ELEMENTAL COUNTRIES YOU SHOW GREAT LAZINESS or stuff so you get a ring.

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Shikamaru Nara of the Elemental Countries.

You have great apathy.

Here, have some superpowers. I suppose you could do something with them, if you wanted, but why would you?

In theory, a dead gray could become a black, but only under very specific circumstances (the ring would have to reach them before they actually died, since the new black corps works by downloading the mind into the black ring). But here's the problem, the grays are emotionally drained. The black lanterns can't effectively use them for fuel. With the grays besieging the entire universe, the black's main source of power is slowly being depleted. The black lanterns would eventually face a situation where they either have to stop making new black lanterns, or start culling from the populations they're trying to save.

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I don't think it would really work to have grey lanterns in this story. It was really more of a joke suggestion and taking it as a serious plot point would just ruin what you already have.

Apologies for the week long wait, but I hit a snag, wrote myself into a point where I didn't know how to move the story forward, and had to start over a few times until something worked. I think I've got it now, but I'm not entirely comfortable with it. I've rewrote it four or five times now, so let me know if there are any inconsistencies you spot that I missed. Those are likely artifacts of an earlier draft.

*****​

When I finally get to permanently die, when I get to the afterlife if there is one, I’m going to find the entity responsible for my current situation, and I’m going to kick it in the teeth, damn the consequences.

The first thing I’d done before approaching the planet was cut off my own foot, and then throw it in the general direction of the planet. It didn’t explode once it touched the atmosphere, so I figured it was probably safe for me to approach.

The second thing I’d done was realize that the only source of emotion for me to provoke was on that planet and that meant I needed to be there. That got me moving in the right direction. It was a rather brilliant loophole in the ring’s OS that I could exploit. By planning actions around future emotional provocation, I could still accomplish tasks with the ring, even if those provocations never came to pass. It wasn’t nearly as effective as actively provoking someone now, but it got the job done. It also explained how the original Black Lanterns were able to cross all throughout the universe.

Now, I was floating above the surface of Qward, terrified out of my mind, and tentatively poking the planet’s surface with my finger. I know it wasn’t rational, and I knew that my ring was virtually indestructible, and I knew I’d “grow back”, but I was still freaked out by “anti-matter universe.” I still expected to explode into a fiery mushroom cloud at any moment.

Inevitably, I just had to knuckle down and get over myself. My feet came to rest on the planet’s surface, and I took my first tentative steps forward. I took a second step, then a third, and was pretty confident that I was going to be okay when everything exploded around me.

“Oh god I knew it, I knew it was actual anti-matter!”

Only it wasn’t. Whatever it was that hit me had apparently just been some kind of normal explosive. Well, normal enough to have literally blown me in half. Thank you necrotic regeneration. Also, thank you ring for reestablishing my pants. Having a ring that provides a uniform is a wonderful perk.

I looked for the source of the explosion, and was met with an interesting sight. They were humanoid, clearly, but beyond that I couldn’t really tell much about them besides the fact that they were pretty far away and appeared to be holding… was that a rocket launcher?

Yes it was. I knew that because another rocket had been sent in the general direction of my head.

I reacted more out of instinct than any sense of self-preservation, forming the octagonal shield that had been my first defensive construct. It had been a long time since I’d used it since I had been working on forging my Suriel persona for disguising myself. Now that I was no longer on Earth, I could use the constructs I was comfortable with. Granted, those constructs were 90% from popular culture and the internet, but come on, I deserved a little leeway in the creativity department. There was so much good stuff out there, how could I be expected to improve upon that? Hell, my web forum of a home page was an excellent source of inspiration. Now what were those things called again? Ah yes, now I remember…

“For the Emperor!” I yelled as I dropped the shield and materialized a black bolter in my right hand.

It performed exactly as advertised… that is to say their heads exploded rather horrifically.

There were only a handful of them left now. Three, maybe five at most, scrambling around trying to lay down more hurt on me. The rockets had stopped flying at least, though now they were attacking me with some kind of beam weapon. These were hilariously ineffective, as all they managed to do was punch quarter sized holes in me. I didn’t even need to shield myself.

The strange thing is I didn’t even question why I was under attack. I’d grown so used to that being the default response to seeing me that I’d just sort of seen it as inevitable. What was strange was the emotional response I was getting from them. A little fear, a little rage, but nothing like what I’d been able to provoke on Earth. It was almost like they were expecting me to fight back this way, or perhaps this is just how life was here. Sucks to be them I guess. I suppose living on the homeworld of the fear lanterns makes you a bit jaded.

Let’s see, one two three… four. Four left. I once again checked my ring’s charge, and with some quick arithmetic determined that I would probably need all of their hearts, save for the one I intended to interrogate. I made it a habit to keep the ring relatively full. I’d never needed more than two at a time, and that was usually when I didn’t take a heart every battle. If there were two things these “Qwardians” were good at, it was depleting my ring and being terrible power sources.

The first one died fairly quickly. I used rush tactics and a quick clawed hand attack in hopes of spiking a reaction in the others. I only recovered a little less than 4%, but it seemed the others finally recognized me for what I was.

FEARFEARRAGE

Despite the fact that the last one was glowing red rather than yellow, he also took off after his companions as they fled. Apparently they were going on bear theory. You don’t have to outrun the bear, just the slowest guy in the group.

Instead of chasing them down, tearing out their hearts for some paltry sustenance, and then going off to find my weaponer, I decided to just follow these guys. Technically speaking, I wasn’t sure these guys weren’t weaponers. They sure did seem to pack the firepower for it. For the most part, I just wanted to see where these guys thought they were running to that would protect them from the incarnation of death made manifest chasing after them.
Turns out, they were running to some kind of very heavily fortified settlement. I’m talking about a dome of some bronze like metal that covered the entire place and presumably was built to keep out something very nasty. But will it hold up to concentrated death beams? We shall find out… for science.

The trio ran into the gate on the verge of exhaustion as I slowly floated towards the central gate. I watched rather dispassionately as it slammed shut just as I reached it. I know, on a fundamental level, that what I was doing was stupid. I should have just interrogated them, killed them, and been done with it… But I didn’t know anything about this world, or the galaxy at large. And I was in the anti-matter universe. If anything, it could just mean it was some kind of mirror universe where good is evil and superman has an evil twin with a goatee who is also a mob boss… right. That’s stupid. But still, how else do I explain the fact that I haven’t been exploding (constantly… the rockets don’t count)?

Well, I’m here now, locked out of a fortified city, and I want to attract something called a “weaponer.” Let’s see how they react to a serious threat to their livelihood. I focused on spreading fear, rage, maybe a little will to fight back, and focused on creating a construct to bust into the city.

By now, word of what was at their door should be spreading throughout that city. So I emulated the orange light and brought forth my army of minions. A copy of all those I’d murdered (and it was murder, regardless of how much they deserved it) manifested, holding the weapons they’d died fighting me with. As one, they focused fire on the main gate, slowly but surely eating into it. Leading the effort, were the Qwardians who I'd slaughtered not ten minutes ago, their rocket launchers and pulse rifles singing in the night.

At that point the turrets started folding out of the walls, focusing on me and my army. Oh… this should be good.

The Black Lanterns descended on Qward during the Blackest Night, so they went through the apocalypse at the same time the Matter Universe did. Travel between the two linked dimensions is disturbingly easy for someone with a power ring.

The Black Lanterns descended on Qward during the Blackest Night, so they went through the apocalypse at the same time the Matter Universe did. Travel between the two linked dimensions is disturbingly easy for someone with a power ring.

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No they didn't. Nekron has no interest in the Antimatter universe, as he states at the end of Blackest Night:

Anti-Monitor: I AM YOUR PRISONER AND POWER SOURCE NO MORE, NEKRON.
Nekron: Then you are nothing.Go back to your own universe, creature.This one is mine.

Pretty sure they were there specifically for the Sinestro corps, not to wipe out the anti matter universe

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True, but I never said anything about the antimatter universe as a whole. I just said Qward went through the apocalypse at the same time as the matter universe. Which they did. Thus the Qwardians would know what a black lantern was, since it was their relatives rising from their graves to exact revenge on the Sinestro Corps.

Those turrets seemed to be related to the pulse rifle I’d been repeatedly shot with earlier. Related in the same way a musket was related to a cannon. I am all kinds of glad I don’t feel pain anymore. Half of my minions refocused their fire on the new threat, while I threw up shields to protect them. Despite the fact that they were constructs, they were emulated orange constructs. That meant that if you hit them hard enough they dissipated, unlike my other types that I could maintain just by pumping more power into them. If I wanted to recreate a dispelled minion, I had to do so from scratch. Energy wise, it was much more efficient to just shield them with emulated will.

Shielding my army was a full time job. They had to be on the offensive here, since protecting them required all the concentration I had. Honestly it felt like being in an MMO raid group all over again, except I had to run the tanks, healers, and dps’s all at once. When I was alive, there was no way my mind could have handled this kind of multitasking. Now that the distractions of actually living were gone, my focus was much more… focused. I could do this. I’m sure of it.

Another turret exploded, and I managed to stop most of the shrapnel. A little bit though still tore into my minions and five of them dissipated into the ether. I didn’t have the focus to “rez” them. Despite the fact that there were fewer and fewer turrets by the minute, their rate of fire only seemed to intensify as I took them down.
“This is way above my challenge rating. White lantern, you are the worst GM ever” I mumbled.

My confidence was diminishing. This really was like a raid. The “boss” being the turrets, and it only getting tougher as the fight progresses. New mechanics opening up as the health bar ticked closer to zero…
Another turret bit the dust, my army closing in so that the turrets wouldn’t be able to overlap their arcs of fire. Getting close seemed like a brilliant plan at the time, until they started spewing fire in addition to the energy pulses.

“Oh that is bullshi-” I tried to scream as a pulse got through my personal defenses and took my head off. Why does that keep happening!?

This time I was ready for it though, my body remained upright and standing, and I continued shielding my constructs, though without sight this took the form of dome shields rather than the hexagons I’d been using. I had to keep them that way until I had eyes again, and that was a period of time the turrets were able to pour firepower against my shields, and time I wasn’t spending shooting back.

My eyes finally returned, and my vision snapped back on. I instantly dropped my large shields and went back to producing personal ones as needed.

Warning. Ring capacity at 50%.

I was really starting to regret my earlier decision to let those Qwardians go. Like, a lot. Another turret fell, and another. More folded out of the walls. I might just have to retreat, but if I did that would give them time to recover and fortify more. I couldn’t allow that. I needed in. I needed hearts. I needed to keep pushing.

So I did, and all I seemed to be doing was chipping away at their armor while rapidly draining my own reserves. But chipping away I was. The new turrets were folding out at a reduced rate. That meant they were either running out of turrets… or running out of power. I didn’t care honestly. I was grinning like a maniac because I was winning!

I poured on the power, and kept with a final crack the door locks on the main gate finally gave way. My personal army cleared out the remaining turrets whose firing arcs covered the gate, allowing me to approach unmolested. Considering how much power they were draining just by existing, I dismissed them. I didn’t need them anymore, and it would be easier to call them up again once I’d recharged.

I moved toward the gate, intent on prying it open, though I needn’t have bothered. As I approached the gate opened on its own.

Standing in the opening, was a Qwardian.

He was small, by the standards of the ones I’d seen previously. He (I think it was a he, honestly, I had no way to tell) was shorter than I was by a few inches, and had a gangly look to him that made me think “adolescent.” The more surprising thing was the fact that he had some kind of thick manacles holding his wrists together, linked to chains connected to his waste. Some kind of prisoner then.

He stepped outside the gate, which then began to screech shut behind him.

“Oh no you don’t!” I started, before putting up a wedge construct to hold the door open. I wasn’t just going to let them close it on me.

The manacles hissed, before releasing themselves and dropping to the ground. The chains delinked and followed shortly after. That was when I noticed the cube held in boy Qwardian’s hand. He was pointing it at me.

“Oh son of a b-” was as far as I got. On a positive note, my head didn’t explode. I was getting kind of tired of that. On a more sour note, I was disintegrated, utterly and completely. That hadn’t ever happened before.

Losing access to one’s body is an interesting experience. It also drove home the point that I was definitely not “inside” my body anymore. Leading theory now was that I was the ring. Especially since that was the only thing left intact after that kid hit me with whatever the hell it was he hit me with.

My “awareness” was completely different now that I lacked a body. I could still sense pockets of emotional energy, hell, the kid was glowing like a green beacon. I also sensed that beacon getting closer. I wanted away, and despite the fact that I had no body or any recognizable means of propulsion, the green light began to become further away than it had been previously. I kept “moving” and realized that the ring could move itself. If I’d had a face I would have smiled. This was useful.

I put what I hope was enough distance between us before trying to regenerate my body again. Apparently it wasn’t nearly enough, because I’d got as far as my arm before I was hit again.

Warning: Ring capacity at 30%.

Wonderful. I bust into the city and I’m getting my ass kicked by a teenager with a box. I went back to regenerating, while dodging as well. It must have looked hilarious, a ring flitting around trailed by an arm, and eventually a torso.

I finally managed to get my head back on, and my awareness snapped back to what I considered normal. I looked down to see the kid fumbling around with his box, pieces of metal floating around it, like he was trying to reconfigure something. The metal shards floating around the cube suddenly snapped back into place, the device now in the shape of a spiky star-like ball. It was floating, and spinning, and I did not at all like the fact that the kid was now franticly running back towards the city like his life depended on it.

Could it hurt my ring? Probably not, but I was not taking that chance. As my legs finally reformed I put up the biggest and thickest shield I’d ever conjured between me and the device, and then felt like an idiot as it sent a beam of energy three meters wide into the sky straight above it.

Edit: You should totally alter some of the settings on your ring, as well as any it creates with the deputy function, assuming black rings can do that. Something aside from the standard "RISE" or the dreaded "DIE" phrases when first donned to set it aside from others. Need some extra firepower? Raise a few superheros with a 24 hour time limit to blow the designated planetary threat away and confuse the hell out of everyone when Black Lanterns show up protecting the living. And then when the 24 hours are up, *POOF* they go back to being dead.